


All Things Strive

by Temeritous



Series: The Tale of Naruto Uzumaki [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Mild Gore, Missing Scenes, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 20:17:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 8,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9842180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Temeritous/pseuds/Temeritous
Summary: Scenes from the years when Team Seven was on the run, including the beginning of Naruto's unfortunate habit of getting swallowed by large animals, the growth of teamwork, training methods, and how they came together and made it all work.





	1. A Special Occasion

**Author's Note:**

> So you can mostly thank Calliopechild's reviews and my replies for this being published, because while it had occurred to me to write and post this kind of thing before, I was mostly content to just leave these alone. Sadly this is another series of scenes/oneshots in my series and not another full fic (maybe this will kickstart my inspiration though here's hoping everyone!), less focused on character study like Three Monkeys was and more focused on worldbuilding-type scenes that just weren't important enough to get put into the main fic. None of these can really stand alone without reading at least Of the Leaf, and I don't know why you'd even want to try but do what you will.
> 
> As a side note, everything is dated within my universe's timeline but I don't expect anyone to be looking at that and lining it up in their heads. The dates are basically for me to make sure everything makes sense, time-wise, and as a crutch because without it I have no idea how much time has passed.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First kill for a ninja is a special occasion.

**30th of March, 62 f.K.**

When the dust settled and the adrenaline was giving way to jittery nerves and an awareness of pain, Sasuke and Naruto were both staring down at a body.

Kakashi picked an exhausted Sakura up onto his back and walked over to them with heavy steps, his one eye blank of emotion as he took in the scene:

The dripping kunai in Naruto's hand, a blood spatter pattern shared between him and Sasuke, who was still holding onto the katana that impaled the body into the dirt. Kakashi looked up to the sky briefly and took a deep breath.

"Who made the killing blow?"

Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other; neither spoke.

"Well, congratulations go to both of you then. Your first kill," Kakashi shifted Sakura on his back so he could bring a hand around and pretend to wipe a proud tear out of his eye. "I'm so proud, they grow so fast."

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto finally noticed, "Are you alright!"

"Just tired," she mumbled into Kakashi's neck. "Good job guys."

"Celebrations are in order!" Kakashi insisted. "There's a town not too far from here, we'll get something good to eat. First kill, that's a milestone in a ninja's life. First mission, first kill, first f - "

"Sensei!" Three horrified voices drowned him out.

Kakashi's lips pursed. "You might be a little young for that yet."

Sakura butted the back of his head and groaned, "Can we just burn the body and get a move on?"

Kakashi leaned down, keeping a steadying hand on Sakura, and slipped the shinobi's headband off his forehead. He checked the back, rubbing his thumb over the leaf insignia on the front as he did; there was only a number, no name listed. This was Root, then.

"Burn it," Kakashi ordered.

Sasuke and Naruto both made the handsigns for the Fire Grave technique, which burned hotter than most fire jutsu but moved so slowly that it wasn't really useful for battle. It came out at a similar strength for both: Sasuke's skill with fire matching Naruto's excess of chakra for power. The body caught and began to burn as the boys maintained the flow of chakra.

"That's enough," Kakashi decided when there was nothing more than bone-ash left. He dropped the headband on the other tied-up Root ninja as they passed her and her partner's bodies.

The closest town was thirty minutes away at a good pace, long enough for Sakura to recover and slide down to walk on her own, long enough for Kakashi to get lost remembering what Minato-sensei had done for his own first kill.

But of course those are painful memories best not revisited, so instead he started talking. "If we were back in Konoha, I'd be taking you out to one of those all-you-can-eat buffets, those places the Akimichi run. We'd get a bottle of sake for the whole team, you'd be allowed in the ninja bars and considered an adult in the eyes of the village. It's pretty much the last rite of passage as far as shinobi are concerned."

"Does it really count for both of us, since we aren't sure who actually did it?" Naruto asked.

Kakashi smiled under his mask, remembering Obito's first kill. He'd been so offended that Kakashi had participated in it, when it wasn't even Kakashi's first. "It counts; it's happened before. Don't worry, you'll each get your own solo kills soon enough. This will be a fun story to tell your own little genin someday."

Sakura sighed. "I can't even imagine having my own students someday. Feels like we've been gone for a year already."

"It's barely been a month," Sasuke grunted, but the way he was looking down told them that he felt it too.

"We have a long way to go yet," Kakashi agreed, and passed on Minato's own advice for living through seemingly intolerable circumstances. "But we're always one day closer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More worldbuilding trash from me! I never bought into the idea that a ninja's first kill and even the ones after that are supposed to be this traumatic, deliberate decision that haunts them afterwards. They live in a village full of people who murder for money and signed up to become a murderer; their culture is steeped in the idea that life is not precious and at any time you could be killed. Murder and the personal reaction to it is cultural and affected by your environment; if everyone around you is cheering and patting you on the back after you just killed a person, its not going to register as a 'terrible thing'.
> 
> Not to say that there's no PTSD in this situation, but that's more about the brain's way of coping with (unexpected) violence. I'll shut up now. If you have more questions or comments on my zero-psych-experience ideas on ninja psychology, we can talk in the comments :)


	2. Naruto and the Snake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonah and the whale but with Naruto and a snake instead. This is where it all began, folks.

**15th of May, 62 f.K.**

"Who the hell are these guys?" Naruto shouted, swinging around a tree by ninja wire. He came back around to kick the enemy ninja in the back with both feet, almost bowling him into Sasuke who barely moved out of the way in time.

"Watch it, idiot!" Sasuke snapped as he went after to make sure that one stayed down.

"Oh no," Sakura said.

They both turned to look at her. Her opponent had knocked her down and she was still in the movement of rolling up off the ground, but the enemy wasn't taking advantage. He'd made some distance between them and was summoning something.

"Sensei?" Naruto shouted uncertainly.

From his lounging seat on a tree branch, Kakashi turned another page in his book. Without looking he called in a bored monotone, "Good job guys, you can do, I believe in you."

"Sensei!" Naruto shouted again, louder, as the smoke cleared and revealed a snake as big as a house.

Kakashi's eyes flicked up over the top of his book and took in the situation. Two ninja down, one left exhausted, and a single large summon. "Don't forget to have fun, kids!"

Naruto screamed his frustration and made thirty shadow clones to keep the snake busy, intending to focus on the summoner first. Instead, the beast swept its tail contemptuously through his bodies and dispelled them easily, smacking into Naruto himself and throwing him back.

"I'll get the summoner!" Sakura declared, swiftly moving back and to the side to flank from a safe distance.

"Its scales are some kind of armor," Sasuke reported shortly, when he landed near Naruto a second later, shaking smoke off his hands from a fireball technique.

"Maybe the eyes?" Naruto suggested.

The eyes were small targets, but Sasuke's aim was true: in the next minute the snake was blind, but didn't seem very hindered by this fact. It was just angrier, and still lunging at them with unerring accuracy.

"Gotta get to the brain," Naruto growled and leaped at the serpent with a kunai in both hands, intent on driving them both straight through the skull.

The snake was faster. Sasuke watched with blank surprise as Naruto disappeared down its throat in one quick swallow. He paused, wondering.

Sakura joined him while he was still staring at the snake, which had stopped for the moment to look curiously down at its own body. It was too big for Naruto to even make a lump under the scales.

"That's your first kill, right?" Sasuke asked idly.

"Yeah," Sakura grinned at him. "Uh, where's Naruto?"

Sasuke nodded at the snake.

"Should we... try to cut him out?"

His head tilted to the side and eyes narrow, Sasuke said, "Probably not."

And a tide of Naruto burst from within the snake, tearing it in half. The head fell thrashing to the ground, still blinking and snapping reflexively, as the bottom half of the the body twisted itself in knotted circles.

The Naruto clones began to dispel, eventually leaving only one of him, solid and coated head to toe in blood. He leaned forward and spat more blood onto the ground, wiping at his mouth and eyes uselessly.

"That," he snarled, "Was so fucking gross."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I don't know where the big snake came from. Orochimaru wouldn't let just anybody sign his summon scroll, and these guys are no-names. Just roll with it okay? It's the ninja world, stuff happens and animals get big.


	3. The Nine-Tailed Fox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi and Naruto tell Sasuke and Sakura about the Fox. Kakashi drops some bombshells as well.

**11th of October, 62 f.K.**

"Do I have to be here for it?" Naruto pleaded in a low tone, looking up at Kakashi.

"You really think it'll somehow go better if you aren't there?"

Naruto made a face. "No, but at least I won't have to watch it go bad."

Kakashi reached out and ruffled his hair; Naruto leaned heavily into the touch. "Have faith in your teammates," he suggested lightly, using his hand still on Naruto's head to direct him to walk ahead, "I don't think they'll disappoint you."

"It's not them who'll be disappointing," Naruto muttered, but walked anyway. He'd never been called a coward.

"Sasuke, Sakura," Kakashi called when they'd reached the fire and rejoined the rest of the team. Both heads raised to him, pulled out of their own tasks; Sasuke taking care of his kunai, Sakura sewing new stitching into her sleeves. "Naruto has something to tell you."

Naruto turned outraged eyes on his sensei, who gave him an encouraging smile with just a little edge of a threat to it. He sighed.

He was no storyteller, and he didn't know anything about the circumstances around it to tell them, so Naruto just blurted, "The Fourth Hokage couldn't kill the Nine-Tailed Fox so instead he sealed it into a baby so it couldn't hurt anyone, and that was me."

Sasuke blinked at him. Sakura's eyebrows went up. They both took a long moment to process it, which Naruto spent feeling like his speeding heart was going to jump straight out of his chest.

"So... like... you've got the Nine-Tails living in your head?" Sakura ventured eventually. Sasuke perked up, leaning in towards Naruto with his Sharingan activated.

"Um, my stomach is where the seal is," Naruto replied. "And I can't hear it talking or anything. It's just sealed in me. Sometimes I can draw on its chakra, when I'm really angry or afraid or hurt."

"Have you ever fought me with it?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto smirked meanly at him. "Never needed it to keep up with you, bastard."

Sasuke sneered back. "Guess I can stop going easy on you then."

Sakura cleared her throat pointedly and looked over to Kakashi. "You knew about this?"

"After the sealing, the Third Hokage made a law that it was never to be talked about. Not even Naruto knew until the night he graduated. The fact that Konoha kept its Jinchuuriki was a closely-guarded trump card."

"Jinchuuriki?" Sakura latched on to the word. "Power of Human Sacrifice?"

"There's more tailed beasts out there than just the Fox, and they've all been sealed away into human containers called Jinchuuriki. It's the only way to control them; if they are destroyed, they always eventually reform. Naruto was chosen because newborns are the most likely to survive the sealing," he hesitated for a moment then added, "And because of certain things in his bloodline."

Naruto turned on him, one hand catching onto Kakashi's arm. "How would the Hokage know anything about my bloodline? Do you know who my parents were?"

"The Fourth knew because he was your father, and your mother was the previous Jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tails. Their names were Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki. Minato was also my jounin-sensei."

Sakura was staring wide-eyed between Kakashi and Naruto; Sasuke had sat back and emotionally retreated from the conversation, trying to absorb everything being thrown at him without reaction. Naruto's expression had gone from shocked to elated to something complicated that clenched and bared his teeth and made his eyes screw shut tightly, his head tilted down and hands in trembling fists at his side.

Softly, his team heard, "They didn't leave me."

"Naruto...." Sakura said, standing up. Sasuke looked away from the display, trying to give Naruto some privacy.

Naruto's shoulders hunched up around his ears and he turned his back. He told them, "I'm gonna. Go for a walk." In a tightly controlled voice, and bolted away from camp.

Sakura frowned at Kakashi. "You could have done that better than springing it on him."

Kakashi shrugged and tried to feign callousness as he replied, "You're ninja. Surprising information, bad or good, is going to be sprung on you at times. Get used to it."

"You're not wrong," Sakura allowed, "You're just a jerk. Come on, Sasuke, we should go find him."

"He might want to be left alone," Sasuke pointed out, but he stood.

"Then he can tell us so himself."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE FADE-AWAY
> 
> But really there isn't much more to this scene. They find Naruto, comfort him, etc. He comes back and punches Kakashi and then asks about his dad. Writing emotions is hard guys, Danzo needs to make all my characters emotionless machines.
> 
> Side-note: Right now I've got about nine more scenes planned out in chronological order, with maybe more added later if I think of them. For those later ones, would people prefer to have them sorted into the chronological order, or tacked onto the end? I don't know how AO3 deals with alerts about chapters inserted into the middle of a fic. This is the last of what I've written so far, more to come as produced.


	4. Exam Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dogs run the fox into exhaustion, and don't let it sleep.

**15th of June, 63 f.K.**

The birdsong of the forest paused for a moment, a rippling circle of silence spreading out of an unseen epicenter, as the birds took note of something new among them. Tentative, it started up again long seconds later and built to its normal volume, intrusion forgotten.

"Do you think we lost him?" Naruto whispered.

Sasuke, between controlled breaths so he wasn't panting loud enough to hear, muttered, "Not likely."

"Can't keep going," Sakura gasped. She was pale and shaking; it had been days since their last rest. "This is it. We're done."

Even Naruto was showing signs of wear in the dark circles under his eyes. He'd slept the least of all of them, taking most of the night watches because they all accepted that he had the most stamina.

"Do we fight?" Naruto asked.

"He has to be tired too." Sasuke asserted. "And we still outnumber him."

Sakura was shaking her head. "He's run us into the ground, he must think he can beat us even tired. We should have stopped earlier, planned ahead! We won't be fighting him on our terms."

"He didn't tell us there'd be a fight at the end," Sasuke muttered bitterly, scowling.

"'Your enemy isn't going to tell you all his plans.'" Sakura quoted back at him, head listing forward. "I can't... we need to rest. Maybe we got enough distance this time."

"'Maybe'," Sasuke mocked, cranky. "'Gets you killed.'"

"I don't have a good Kakashi-ism," Naruto broke in, "But I'm gonna go set up some traps. You guys should try to rest."

"You're running on fumes the same as us, idiot." Sasuke snapped.

Naruto stuck out his tongue and glared at him. "I'm just sleepy, bastard, you guys are actually chakra-exhausted. I can keep going."

Sasuke blinked slowly, for a long moment too out of it to even answer. Finally he said, "If that Fox ever wants a less annoying host, I'm available."

"Ha! Kakashi-sensei says that at least half of this is genetics from my mom!"

"The volume, too," Sakura muttered, slumping down straddling a tree branch and leaning back against the trunk. She was out almost immediately, the bark-brown side of her cloak pulled up over her head.

Sasuke positioned himself on the next branch over, choosing to sleep laying on his front instead, camouflage cloak draped over his back and hanging like moss over either side.

Naruto moved away quietly and began setting up his traps with the expectation that Kakashi would never spring any of them. But maybe he was tired enough to make that mistake, and at any rate it gave them some zone-control for the battle when he did finally catch up.

When he was done with the traps, Naruto returned to Sakura and Sasuke's tree and concealed himself among the roots, gazing out with drooping eyelids to keep watch. He startled awake from a stone-heavy sleep what felt like only moments later, although the angle of the sun through the leaves had dropped to sunset levels and it had been just after noon the last he knew.

Heart beating rapidly, shaking from a sudden injection of adrenaline, Naruto held his breath and listened hard to the forest. The birds were muted, their cautious natures recovering from something.

Naruto crept out of his hiding place and through the shadowy undergrowth, taking care not to rustle the bushes or snap any deadwood. He walked the perimeter of their safe spot, checking on his traps. Had an animal set one off?

Then he stopped and stood up, staring with dawning delight at the sight before him.

"Cut me down." Kakashi ordered him, hanging upside down by one ankle with his arms folded. Given the way his hair was naturally and that his other leg was straight against the trapped one, he looked like standard disapproving sensei except upside down and hanging two feet off the ground.

"I thought there was supposed to be a fight when you found us?" Naruto asked, not coming any closer. He was wise to Kakashi's cheating ways.

Kakashi sighed heavily. "That was before I set off a trap and blacked out for a little while just from getting turned upside down. You kids tire me out. Test over."

Eyes narrowed suspiciously, Naruto declared, "I don't believe you."

"Think of it this way. You can come cut me down and we can get back to the others peacefully, or I can get out my kunai and do it myself, and then I see how much longer you can really go."

Naruto made a gross face but threw his kunai to cut the rope, not trusting Kakashi enough to get close to him. His sensei twisted catlike in the air and landed on his hands straight into an acrobatic bend that put his feet on the ground and rotated him the right way around.

The overall impression was ruined when he stumbled, groaning, and put a hand on his forehead. "Ugh. Where's camp, I need a nap."

Naruto finally moved over to him and offered his shoulder for Kakashi to lean on. "Did we do good, sensei?" he asked cheekily.

Kakashi pretended to consider it for a moment. "Eh."

"I could let you stumble back by yourself."

"You guys were great!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline-wise, this falls after they've met up with Jiraiya, which is the only reason Kakashi risked such a strenuous test. Jiraiya is on hand in the area to protect them while they recover.
> 
> I struggle to balance Kakashi's interaction with his team between professionalism as their teacher and mentor, and expressing his actual affection for the kids he's basically raising, since he's the only thing they have outside of each other. Developmentally, the genin need encouragement and some kind of human connection that goes beyond teacher-student, which they could potentially get elsewhere if they were still in the village but have to get from Kakashi instead. When your circle of people is literally three with a distant fourth occasionally tacked on, the group gets a little too close, and Kakashi has to try to balance out caring about the kids with brutal and (an outside observer would say) near-abusive teaching methods that will help them survive.
> 
> So this is me exploring that.


	5. Naruto and the Toad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonah and the Whale, but with Naruto and a toad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short and sweet LOVE ME FOR MY CONTENT NOT MY WORDCOUNT PLEASE

**1st of July, 63 f.K.**

Sakura looked up from her anatomy studies, realizing abruptly that the world had grown much quieter and calmer than it had been moments ago.

Jiraiya was standing nearby, arms folded satisfied over his chest as he gazed benignly at the destruction of this field, the churned earth and smoldering grasses. Farther away, a massive toad sat in a shallow puddle and looked content with itself.

Looking around more didn't reveal Naruto, who had just been sparring against Jiraiya. Apprehension rising, Sakura stood up and nudged Sasuke for his attention.

Sasuke jerked out of his nap with a disgruntled huff, sitting up and blinking blearily in the early evening sunlight. "What?"

"Jiraiya-sensei, where's Naruto?" Sakura asked.

Jiraiya didn't turn, just jerked his thumb at the toad. It was definitely big enough to swallow a person.

"Um," Sakura wondered how to put this. "If he doesn't spit Naruto out, he'll probably explode."

The toad heard her, and she'd never imagined what instant regret would look like on a toad but she could damn well recognize it when it happened. It stretched out and heaved.

Naruto came spilling out of its mouth slimy and very displeased. After he'd wiped his mouth on the inside of his sleeve, he said to the toad, "You had three more seconds before things got bad for you."

Jiraiya was too busy laughing his ass off to defend against it when Naruto came at him with intent to concuss.


	6. Ninja Burial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team 7 cleans up some bad ninja.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some more of my worldbuilding trash. This one is skippable. They're actually all skippable, but this one more so.

**3rd of August, 63 f.K.**

Naruto stumbled mostly upright, the world spinning around him with a strange ringing sound in his painful ears. Three of Sakura moving in unison came into his vision, hands reaching out as if to steady him but he was too far away for that.

To Naruto's surprise, Sakura's hand landed right on his shoulder. She was really much closer than it had looked at first, and those weren't clones with her; slowly they combined into the real Sakura.

There was a muted pressure on his ears, making the ringing more poignant for a second. He swatted uselessly at them, wondering where they were and why his head hurt so much.

His hand came down covered in blood. From his ears. How had that...?

Finally the world steadied fully and he could look around without falling over, and he saw the bodies on the ground and remembered. There had been a base from Sound in the cave system near here, preying on the local village far from any shinobi or samurai protection. There were twelve dead Sound ninja lying around, although they'd fought hard with their sonic weapons.

"Can't hear," Naruto told Sakura, trying to match his normal volume. Sakura only nodded and went to join Sasuke and Kakashi in rifling through the base's supplies before they collapsed the cave entrance.

By the time they were done, Naruto's eardrums had healed well enough that he could hear things, although there was still a faintly unpleasant ringing.

"Here," Kakashi said, dragging a body over to Naruto by its collar. "Carry this."

Naruto scratched his head. The man wasn't wearing a Sound headband. "Who is it?"

"One of the villager prisoners," Kakashi replied grimly. "There's four bodies and four of us, so let's get moving."

Naruto hefted the man's corpse onto his back, grimacing all the while, and followed his sensei away from the mouth of the cave while Sakura collapsed the mountain around it, sealing off the lab. The ninja bodies still outside of it laid still and bloody.

The run back to the civilian village was short, for a ninja, but as they reached the outside Kakashi dropped his burden at the roots of a tree and signalled them to hang back and stay hidden. Curious, Naruto created a clone to follow him in stealth and signaled to Sasuke and Sakura that he'd report to them what happened.

Kakashi strode confidently back through the town straight up to the head man's house, where he opened the door and let himself inside. Getting a vantage on that was harder, but the clone found a window to watch through.

"Cleared up your disappearing citizens problem," Kakashi said without preamble, speaking over the head man shouting about what he was doing in here. "Got a favor to ask."

The man went quiet and careful. "We don't have money to pay you, or anything... else you might want."

Kakashi gave him a look of blank reserve. "Not money. We left some bodies up by the cave they were hiding out in; we need ninja burials done on them and we don't have time to hang around and do it ourselves. In return, we bring you back the bodies of your dead." Eying the head man briefly, he added, "They were dead when we got there."

The civilian didn't look like he really believed Kakashi, but also like he wasn't going to argue. There was one point, however, that he was willing to fight. "Ninja don't get buried."

"I said ninja burial, didn't I? That means you burn the bodies, Ichida-san."

"We'll burn them. Where are our dead?" Ichida demanded.

In a bored tone, Kakashi said, "Pass the message along, will you Naruto?"

Naruto received the clone's memories and quickly rehashed the conversation for his teammates, and then picked up the second body under his arm to carry into the village. They stopped and laid the bodies out on the head man's porch, taking more care than they ordinarily would have; which for Naruto meant that he crouched instead of simply dropping them.

"The ninja, Ichida-san," Kakashi reminded the man. "I trust that you'll hold our bargain."

Before the head man could respond, he was already moving at a leisurely pace out of the village, hands in his pockets. Out of sight, Kakashi upped the pace into an easy jog.

"What was that about, sensei?" Sakura asked first.

"If you leave bodies behind for your enemies to examine, they can discover what kind of techniques you use and be more prepared to battle you."

She huffed. "Yes, we know that. I meant with Ichida-san; what did he think you wanted when you asked him to take care of the bodies? Naruto said he seemed angry."

"Ah, it's an old religious rule. Civilians are much more picky about their funerals and burials than ninja, they've got this idea that their bodies return to some sort of cycle when they're buried in the ground. Their priests won't bury ninjas, though, which works just as well for us since a corpse in the ground is only slightly more difficult to find than one on top of it."

"Where to next, sensei?" Naruto asked, bouncing in his next step. "Jiraiya got any more leads on stuff we can do to help, or some super-cool training, or..."


	7. Sasuke and the Hawk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonah and the whale but with Sasuke and a hawk. Wait, no, that's not right....

**9th of October, 63 f.K.**

Beyond Earth country, beyond what most of the maps they were familiar with bothered to chart, there were the endless plains. Freezing cold or blistering hot by turns, and inhospitable and populated by mostly four-legged creatures meting out a sparse living, this out-of-the-way corner of the world was perfect for fugitives.

It was also a very weird place.

"Woah," Naruto said, his tone awed. "What the fuck are those."

The group of gray-skinned creatures grazed peacefully at the dried-up grass, pulling it up with... "They have arms on their faces!"

Even Kakashi stared a bit. "No idea. But they're eating grass, so probably not carnivorous. Too much to eat for our dinner, let's keep moving."

From the distance, they heard a piercing whistle; Sasuke, positioned with his Sharingan on a tall rock outcropping, had spotted something likely and was directing them towards it. Kakashi had turned to follow the line of his arm, but Naruto was still watching his teammate, so he saw the dark shadow come diving out of the air.

"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted, too late; Sasuke was crushed down under the talons of a massive bird, and not a second later it had pushed off again into the air, beating its wings heavily to gain altitude.

Naruto turned around to look at Kakashi, his expression a study in shock. "Did that just happen?"

Kakashi nodded thoughtfully, tracking the vanishing shadow with his own Sharingan. "He'll be fine when they land." There was a distant eagle's shriek, high-pitched and carrying. He added, "Probably."

Sakura popped up, her bag of medicinal herbs and supplies bulging. "Did you guys just see...?"

Naruto began to grin. "Sasuke get kidnapped by a giant hawk? Yeah. It's like the universe knew it was my birthday tomorrow, and it said 'Here Naruto, this is for you.'"

"It's a giant animal," Sakura pointed out. "Usually our plan for dealing with those involves you getting eaten."

Instant scowl. "Shut up. Let's go find him before he has any more reason to bitch at us for this."

* * *

"Psst!"

Sasuke looked over the edge of the hawk's nest to see his three teammates clinging to the cliff-face with chakra. Kakashi waved. He rolled his eyes and sat back.

The hawk pecked at him and said, "Hey, you haven't guessed yet,"

"Did that hawk just talk?" Naruto asked, climbing over the woven branches and trunks of young trees.

"Are these your nest-mates?" she asked, rearing her head back to get a better look at them. She was drastically far-sighted, but reasonable enough once she realized he was a ninja. "I am sorry for taking him, I was hungry and he was so exposed up there."

"It's fine, it was awesome to watch," Naruto said graciously. "You must be a great hunter."

"Oh, well," the hawk preened her chest feathers for a second.

"This is Garuda," Sasuke introduced shortly. "Garuda, my teammates Sakura and Naruto, and our sensei Kakashi."

"Yo."

"Good to meet you!"

"Were you just waiting for us here or something? We could have been worried!"

Sasuke glared, but before he could respond, Garuda said cheerfully, "We were playing 'I Spy'! It's very rare I find someone with eyes like mine."

Aware that his teammates were all turning to stare at him, Sasuke began to flush a little. "It was something to do," he muttered.

"Well, Garuda-san, it was nice to meet you but I'm afraid we really have to keep moving. We still need to hunt for ourselves, I'm sure you're still hungry...." Kakashi trailed off.

"Oh! Humans are always running off so quickly, especially the ninja. But here," she began to dig at her nest with her talons, unearthing massive downy feathers and small branches, until finally she poked her beak in and came back out with an old scroll case. "It's been years since I knew a ninja who had the eyesight worthy of signing this! My first summoner made it, you know, he had the hawksight too, not as well as yours but much better than the blind riffraff."

Sasuke stared blankly at the babbling bird and the scroll she was offering him. Kakashi nudged his side and muttered, "Take it."

"So just sign it and then you can call me with a little bit of blood and my name!" Garuda looked very pleased with herself. "I do so love you little ninja, you're great hunters and you understand the ways of the world."

Sasuke received the scroll with bad grace, barely remembering to thank the hawk; she didn't appear to notice, perhaps too busy fixing the bottom of her nest again.

"Best birthday present ever," Naruto commented, blithely happy. "I got to see Sasuke carried off by a hawk like a rabbit, and I didn't even have to get eaten by anything!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHA YOU THOUGHT he was gonna get eaten right? No. I'm just here to fill in for canon, folks, this is totes how Sasuke got his hawk summons. On another note, I never teased you guys about where I got my fic title yet this time! Okay, this one is a bit more obscure, so I'll give you a hint: Tak.
> 
> That is all.
> 
> Person who gets it first gets to request a scene or something, get to googling!


	8. Naruto and the Whale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonah and the whale but with Naruto... and a whale.

**12th of June, 64 f.K.**

Running over the ocean was not Sasuke's favorite thing, but at least he could take comfort in the knowledge that Naruto was even worse-off. He was soaked from the knee down and sloshed through most of his steps, rather than stepping like he was walking on slightly damp concrete like Sakura and Kakashi were able to do. Sasuke was mostly dry too, aside from where he'd stupidly allowed Naruto to almost pull him down with him.

"Keep up, idiot," Sasuke called back, eyes fixed on his sensei ahead. Handling the rolls of the waves was nothing but practice, teaching yourself to expect the ground beneath your feet to rise and fall and keep your balance through it.

"We're about halfway across the bay," Kakashi announced from ahead. "Sakura, Sasuke, you two doing okay on chakra?"

Sakura smiled sunnily at him. "Perfect, sensei! I'll have enough to get across for sure."

Maddeningly, Sakura had taken to the shifting waves like she'd never had solid ground beneath her feet. "I'm good too," Sasuke replied.

Kakashi cocked his head to the side and turned around fully. "Where's Naruto?" he asked, with the air of one who knows the answer.

"Maybe he fell in?" Sasuke suggested, looking at the empty ocean behind him.

"He can swim though," Sakura pointed out, "And we definitely would have heard him whining about it."

Sasuke looked down under the surface with his Sharingan anyway. "Uh, Kakashi-sensei, can you look at this?"

Kakashi came to stand next to him and knelt on the water, getting one knee wet. His scarred eye opened wide as he peered into the dark depths. "Well. How long can he hold his breath?"

"Few minutes?" Sakura answered tentatively. "Maybe more if he remembers to cycle his chakra, but after that the oxygen will completely run out. What's down there? What's wrong?"

Kakashi hummed. "It's a whale. Never seen one in this area, and they aren't known for eating people, but this is Naruto we're talking about. If there was one around, it would by nature of the universe be compelled to find and eat him. Let's give him another minute and then go stab it a little."

Thirty seconds into the minute, the whale - which had been circling aimlessly underneath them, seemingly confused - surfaced beside them and flashed a massive black hole in its head, out of which popped a soaked and bedraggled Naruto.

"Yeah, fuck you too buddy!" Naruto shouted, throwing a kunai into the hide. He turned miserably to his team and whined, "Why do you guys never come after me?"

Sakura laid a commiserating hand on his shoulder, then grimaced and removed it, shaking off something slimy. "You seem to handle it really well on your own," she consoled him.

Sasuke said, "Hm," and smirked at him.

Kakashi smiled and told him, "It makes me laugh."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The answer to last chapter's question, quoted directly from Ilphros' answer:
>
>> It's from Thud, by Terry Pratchett - from the *proper* story of how Humans, Dwarves, and Trolls were made.
>> 
>> Tak wrote himself into being, and then wrote a stone geode into being. From the geode hatched two brothers. One went outside the cave they were hatched in, and became the first human. The other went deeper into the cave, and became the first dwarf.  
> From the stone egg itself, however, a third being formed - the first Troll. And Tak was pleased at the life that came unbidden, and wrote "All things strive."
> 
> And from my response:
>
>> So Tak made dwarves and humans from the stone geode on purpose, and then was surprised to find that the geode wanted life too. Kakashi took his team out of the village to protect them and to someday come back and save it, but he also finds (HALLMARK MOVIE MOMENT) love and healing within his own team as well. Cutback to Jurassic Park's 'life finds a way', black screen, roll credits.
> 
> Thanks for playing, Ilphros, you have requested a Sakura-focused chapter and I am a bad author for not already having had one planned!! But I've got an idea now, it should be the next one up. 


	9. Vassal Village

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Kakashi got his hands on the Hokage's seal in Of the Leaf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sit through some more worldbuilding trash before you get the Sakura chapter. It's a double-upload, folks!
> 
> This should probably have been a scene or at least a little bit explained in the actual fic Of the Leaf, since otherwise it's a bit of a plothole (although thanks for none of you calling me on it lol). But it wasn't written then, even though I knew that was how it happened, and I didn't want to just go plug it in later. Anyway, the real action doesn't happen here (since this series is way less about real action) but you get the idea of how it went down.

**23th of August, 64 f.K.**

"Naruto, practice mission briefing."

"Aw, why me? I did it last time!"

"And you'll be the only one doing it until you can do it as well as Sakura or me." Kakashi shot him an unfriendly smile. "Mission briefing."

Naruto groaned and rolled his eyes, flopping backwards dramatically. Above him, Takeda poked his head through the canvas flaps of the covered wagon and asked, "Alright back there, boys?"

The four boys in his wagon, sitting on barrels of grain, nodded in return. "All good, Takeda-san! Thanks again for the ride!" Sakura called, her feminine voice much-suited to the henge of a ten-year-old boy she was wearing.

Takeda smiled back, glancing at Kakashi's sixteen-year-old form. "So good to see brothers sticking together in a time of tragedy like yours. We'll be in Tamamura in a few hours, and then you can start looking for work until dark."

"We'll make enough to pay you back even today, I bet," Kakashi assured him.

"Oh, well, it would be nice but I'm really happy just to have helped. You don't need to feel indebted!" Takeda turned back around, the flap of the wagon falling closed behind him.

Kakashi turned on Naruto with one eyebrow raised, and Naruto stuck his tongue out, having hoped that the interruption would have made his sensei forget.

"Fine! Okay, we're gonna go to Tamamura to get - " Kakashi cleared his throat and muttered, _like to a genin team_ ; Naruto grimaced and cut back, "To Tamamura, which is a vassal village of Konoha and therefore very dangerous to us, since we're wanted by Konoha shinobi and there will be tons - " another pointed cough " - _probably like twenty_ of them station long-term in Tamamura."

"You should really try to get better intel than 'probably like twenty of them,'" Kakashi commented.

Naruto's jaw dropped. "That is literally what you said when you briefed us!"

"And wasn't it frustrating for you?"

"Sensei, can you please just let him finish," Sakura pleaded, kneading at her temples for her headache. Beside her, Sasuke - who was in the Henge form of a fourteen-year-old boy, the twin of Naruto's transformation - was simply glaring murderously.

"Vassal village," Naruto growled, whiskers looking dangerously dark, "is a village whose leadership is sworn to the Hokage. Konoha gets benefits from the village, like a tithe and import tax cuts, and in return Konoha shinobi protect the river port and the warehouses from thieves, and the village itself from other outside pressures. This agreement exists in a written form with a copy of the Hokage's seal on it hidden somewhere in the village. Our mission is to go to Tamamura and steal the scroll, leaving a suitable replica in place."

Kakashi made a circular gesture with his hand. Naruto, a little calmer after a whole speech without interruptions, screwed up his face in thought and scratched the back of his head.

"Oh! And the replica should be pretty easy, because there are only three people who know that the scroll even exists: the leader of Tamamura, the Third Hokage who signed it, and pervy-sensei. And now us, I guess."

"Very good!" Kakashi clapped for him. "Do it again."

Naruto turned to his other two teammates and flashed them a handsign - one Kakashi didn't know, because the three of them had made it up and agreed upon the meaning of it weeks before.

Sakura nodded decisively, and Sasuke's face split into an actual smile, albeit a malicious one.

"Uh, kids?"

A length of ninja wire snapped taut between Sakura's hands. Sasuke nudged some grain barrels out of his way. Naruto sang, "Remember, sensei, can't make too much noise or Takeda-san will come looking!"

* * *

"I regret ever teaching you wretched brats anything," Kakashi muttered right before the gag went over his mouth. He wiggled his fingers uselessly, the only part of his arms below the shoulders that could still be moved under all the wire restraints.

"You guys wanna play dice?" Naruto suggested, rattling a box from his bag.

Sakura nodded, "Sure, just let me get this genjutsu over sensei first so he looks like he's sleeping to Takeda."

"What a lazy brother," Naruto grinned evilly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're paying attention to the timeline or care to know, this falls about a year and a few months before they come back to assassinate Danzo.


	10. Secret Weapon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura steps up to the plate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is gonna bring up the rating for this fic and require me to add the tag for 'mild gore', but I don't go into a ton of detail I think. If you want the specifics of what happens, skip to the notes at the end.

**12th of March, 65 f.K.**

Sound faded back in first and slowly, before she was even really aware that she was awake.

"What do we do about this one?"

The words took almost too long to process, to put together into a coherent idea instead of senseless babble. But she understood just as another voice said, "Leave the body; she's not important, she has nothing Hokage-sama wants, we don't have time to burn it. We have to move before the seal wears off the demon container."

"I'll carry the traitor, you take the other two."

The voices moved away with heavy footsteps and the rustle of branches. The body on the ground breathed in a deep, rattling gasp.

No lung damage, that's good, Sakura thought clinically. Gotta find those fingers though, I need them for hand-signs.

She raised her left hand - the whole one - and pressed it over her stomach. She'd landed on her back, so nothing important had fallen out of the massive gash in her gut, but it was bleeding profusely even as she regulated her body to slow down blood flow.

The slash closed under her green healing chakra, knitting itself back together. She moved on to the stab-wound at her hip, and from there to the broken clavicle and ulna. Done for the moment, she retreived a precious blood-pill from the pouch at her waist and swallowed it. She couldn't sit up without fainting until she let it work for a bit, so she took the time to think.

  
_They were so prepared for this fight_ , she thought glumly. _And they have them, they have my team, it's almost been an hour already, if I were better I would have been up and after them already. If I had been stronger I could have stopped them from putting that seal on Naruto, or kept them off of Sasuke's back, or... done something more._  


Bitterly, she added, _I'm barely any stronger than I was back in Konoha; I'm just better at hiding._  


She sat up and found her fingers where she remembered them flying: into the roots of a tree, the bloody ends a little dirty, and very pale. Nearby, two of the other Root ninja's bodies were slumped together, corpses growing cold. Grimly she rinsed the ends with water from her canteen and stuck them onto her hand, used more precious chakra to reattach them.

It had been an hour since they'd left her for dead. She flexed her newly-healed right hand, was satisfied with the range of motion, and curled it into a fist.

"I am the weakest," Sakura said aloud, "But no one else will save them."

They were her team, four people who could rely on only each other. No one else cared. If she was the last left free, she would have to save them or die trying.

Sakura wasn't the best tracker on her team, but she was able and the two surviving Root ninja weren't trying to cover their tracks. They were also injured and overburdened, moving slowly. She could hope to catch them before they made Konoha. She swallowed a chakra pill and jumped into the trees.

* * *

Her two enemies wouldn't stop to make camp or rest; that was not the Root way. They'd drive themselves into the ground and collapse dead at Danzo's feet if they had to, but they'd arrive in Konoha before resting. There would be no ambush at camp, no waiting for one to be on watch. Sakura would have to fight them two-versus-one.

Or only one-on-one, if she could kill one with her first strike.

She felt them before she saw them, two presences moving heavily below her. They had moved to the ground when they tired too much, jogging along a deer-path through the forest with their burdens. Her teammates. Sakura pushed the thought _they look dead_ out of her mind and focused on which one seemed stronger.

The one carrying Kakashi seemed to be holding up better under the lesser weight. Also, she would feel less guilty if Kakashi was hurt by her attack; as sensei he'd told them often enough that part of his job was to take on whatever his students couldn't handle.

She was as silent as the shadow of a bird as she flanked the deer-path to get ahead of them, more still than the hunted mouse when she picked her spot and waited. The two shinobi came closer.

Chakra flared through her and into her fist in the same instant that she pushed down off the branch, not letting slow gravity propel her down. There was no warning between her chakra's suppression and its release, no half-second to register and dodge. Control was _her_ strength.

The Root ninja crumpled bodily, his skull caved completely in. Sakura shook the grey matter off her hand and round-house kicked out at the other one blindly, expecting it when he caught her ankle, and she knew that he would either twist it or pull on it, she was ready for both.

He pulled, trying to destabilize her planted foot. Instead she collapsed in his grip, trying simultaneously to get her bent knee into his solar plexus as she drove one elbow into his thigh. He moved his knee at the same moment, expecting her jab to be aimed there; even a weak attack could be expected to shatter a knee. But Sakura had learned her strength from Tsunade, and her attack was not going to be weak, so she had aimed at the thigh and hit the quadriceps muscle and broke the femur beneath.

The ninja made a choked-off noise of pain, bending over his broken leg and releasing her ankle. Her foot never touched the ground, instead whipping back up over his head as her other leg came up and her arms both braced against the ground, and then her legs were wrapped around his head and he'd stabbed her in the thigh but she didn't even feel it then, just shoved off the ground with her arms and twisted, her whole body pulling taut.

His neck snapped between her thighs with a satisfying crack that she felt all the way up her spine.

Her last move had left her standing on two feet again, and Sakura realized that she was bleeding again. She pulled the kunai out of her leg and healed it up, then went to check on her team.

Naruto didn't have any wounds that she could find, or they'd already healed, and Sasuke's weren't life-threatening so for the moment she could save up what was left of her power. Kakashi, however, was blinking blearily around a worrying head wound.

"D'I jus' see you crush a man's head inyer thighs?" he asked, slurring heavily.

Sakura would have been blushing if there was enough blood left in her body for it. "Yes, sensei," she muttered, bringing healing chakra to bear on the swollen lump on his temple.

"Thassa girl," he said, smiling faintly. "Se-cret weapon Sa-kura."

"You're bleeding into your brain," Sakura told him as it felt like the sun was rising in her chest. "But I can help with that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for temporary dismemberment (Sakura loses a couple fingers but she puts them back), a skull being squished, some mild stab wounds, and a gut wound (but nothing falls out!).
> 
> So Sakura is a BAMF but you really only get to see that once you take her teammates out of the equation because she'll always let them go first. But you can't leave this bitch for dead, cuz she don't die and she will come after you.
> 
> Also: finally some praise from Kakashi! He just had to be basically hemorrhaging into his brain for it to happen. Don't worry Kakashi, Sakura will fix that right up and then brag about it to Naruto and Sasuke for MONTHS. Basically, y'all woulda been dead and dissected for Danzo if it weren't for her.
> 
> In the timeline, soon after this Kakashi splits up the team for some individual training, basically because now he knows that the weakest link on his team (yes Sakura's still the weakest link I'm sorry but it's true, she's way ahead of her peers in Konoha but her team is overpowered) is strong enough to be split up. You all got to see what happened with Naruto (leadership practice, chapter four of OTL), but what happened with Sasuke and Sakura for those two months? Perhaps we will find out....


	11. Lean On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the two months when Team Seven was split up, Sasuke was stuck traveling with Tsunade. Here's a little idea of what that was like.

**15th of May, 65 f.K.**

  
_Hatake has really done a number on these kids_ , Tsunade thought blithely. Across the fire, Sasuke's back was statue-still as he stared out into the dark forest. He hadn't moved in an hour; hadn't spoken all day.

Then again, she hadn't made much effort to get him to speak. When he failed in his control exercises, in the healing techniques and first-aid skills she was teaching him, she corrected him and moved on. No speech required.

"So were you always this sullen bastard or am I just special?" Tsunade asked out of the blue. Why couldn't Kakashi had given her Sakura? The girl was coming along so well, already an excellent healer and fighter, and Tsunade could only make her better.

Sasuke's head turned to the left, his left eye flicking to watch her out of the corner without turning around further. As an acknowledgement that she'd spoken to him, it was barely adequate.

"So that's a yes on the always, then," Tsunade supposed, and looked up as Shizune came into the circle of firelight.

"Are you mocking poor Sasuke again?" she asked her mentor, setting down a bag of fresh supplies. "Straight from the farmstead, and he had something to pass along to Jiraiya as well."

"Damn," Tsunade took the offered paper, tucking it into a deep pocket. "The nearest bird in his network is a full day's travel out of our way."

Sasuke snorted wordlessly across the fire, almost too quietly to be heard.

"Got something you wanna say, kid, or do I have to check you over for a cold?"

"No, sir," Sasuke replied, still without looking at her. In his head, _If you weren't the only one who knew where to meet up with the rest of my team, I'd be gone already._  


"Good. Shizune, Sasuke will be taking our first watch if you want to go lay down."

"I am tired," Shizune replied, smiling, and went to their bedrolls. Tsunade stayed sat in front of the fire, poking loosely at it with a stick every once in a while.

The fire popped loudly and a log collapsed inward; Tsunade found herself zoning out of her surroundings and back to a month ago, the last time she'd seen Hatake and his other two brats.

_"Teach him what you can," Kakashi said, his natural eye half-lidded and focused on something behind her. "Physically, push him as hard as you want and he can. He won't talk much, don't try to make him. Don't try to find his buttons."_

_"Well, Hatake, you're making the kid sound like a primed exploding tag. Is there something else you wanna tell me?"_

_That single eye slide over to meet her gaze; somehow even that small movement portrayed a threat. "You know exactly what he is and what could happen. I'll hold you responsible." After a moment of Tsunade's unimpressed expression, he added, "Naruto probably will too."_

_Tsunade made a disgusted sound. "You fight dirty, Copy-cat. Don't worry, I won't break your little psychopath."_

Kakashi was still worried about this sullen brat, even after having years to tie him up in knots around his team. Well, if Sasuke was going to leave, better that he didn't hurt Naruto on the way out.

"Why are you still here, Uchiha?"

Sasuke turned his head again and said, "You didn't tell me to go do anything."

"I mean with me. With your team, on a larger scale. With your bloodline, you could find a sensei anywhere. Get some one-on-one training, advance much faster than you have up until now. I mean, half your time is wasted running away from enemies that don't even really want you, just your teammate."

_That_ got his attention. Sasuke turned around, his eyes narrowed at Tsunade over the bright fire. "What is that supposed to mean?" he snapped. "What are you saying about my team?"

"They're holding you back." Tsunade shot at him. "Gods, are you too blind to see it? So much for having ambitions of your own; I guess you just do whatever Hatake tells you: Run away from the safety of the village with me, go here, do this, train so you can come back to the village that hated your family and kill the Hokage."

"I can't find Itachi on my own," Sasuke snapped, "A village's support structure will do that for me." But he still looked disturbed by something.

"Oh, you didn't realize that Konoha hated the Uchiha, did you?" Tsunade considered a derisive laugh and discarded the idea; it seemed a little too cruel even for this. "None of the other families liked that yours considered it their mission to steal and copy every technique out there. Do you even know the history between your family and mine?"

"Do I care?" Sasuke snarled. "It's history, and I have my _own_ reasons to dislike you."

Tsunade opened her mouth to expound on the Senju and Uchiha animosity, then realized what he'd said. "Like what?" she demanded.

"You're a coward. You couldn't cut it in the life you chose, so you cut and ran. Over some dead people. Instead of looking for vengeance, you lost it. That's weak. You had to borrow someone else's strength to move on." Sasuke stood fluidly, obviously intending to leave.

Tsunade's mouth dropped open. In half a second, before Sasuke had any time to react, she was over the fire and pinning him face-first into the dirt, one arm twisted against his back under her knee, spitting grass as he turned his head to catch his breath.

"Listen up, you little shit," Tsunade growled into his ear, her tone low and dangerous. "I'm gonna teach you some stuff. One: people grieve differently." She leaned further onto the knee in his back and listened to his lungs empty. "So where you decided that feeling emotions is for other people, the rest of humanity decided to work through their pain and grow from it.

"Two: Revenge can feel great for its own reasons, but it does nothing to help with grief.

"Three: someday you're going to have to borrow someone else's strength, too. Everyone does. No one is strong enough to go on alone. You can try but it'll eat you up inside, you won't even notice it happening. And when it happens to you, just pray to the dark god that you have someone next to you who can help you up."

She realized she was leaning a little too heavily on the idiot's diaphragm, and shifted back a little. As he gasped for air she finished almost too quiet to be heard, "Because I didn't, for a long time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is why I usually only post things when they're already finished: because I'll churn out 10k words in a day and then nothing for 3 weeks. This installment... did not go where I thought it was going. Tsunade was supposed to tell Sasuke about Senju/Uchiha stuff, but then my Sasuke opened his stupid mouth. And the last bit of the scene happened.
> 
> It seems like Sasuke only learns things in my fics when somebody is pinning him down and hurting him. Probably because there's literally no other way he'd listen to them.
> 
> Chapter title is kind of a pun because Tsunade is leaning on poor Sasuke, and also talking about leaning on teammates. You're all welcome.


End file.
